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Latvian Link   News   Picture Album   June 9, 2000

Subj: Latvian Mailer & AOL Chat Reminder for Sunday, June 11
Date: 6/9/00 9:51:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Sturgalve
File: VARDU_~1.JPG (100042 bytes)
DL Time (TCP/IP): < 1 minute

Sveiki, all!

It's been a busy week! Still trying to finish moving... so we're getting a head start on the weekend by getting the mailer out a bit earlier than usual!

This week's link is a re-featuring from some time ago of the "Names' Day" locator. It's in Latvian, but it should be decipherable even for those whose Latvian skills need a bit of work! It's in keeping with this week's picture theme...

This week's news articles include:

• Russian Experts Warn of Tension With NATO Over Baltic
• Conference opens in Jurmala to discuss Russia-Latvia dialogue
• Latvia will not win economically if it joins NATO (Russian threat)
• NATO, Baltic states hold exercises
• Talbott pledges to help Baltics hunt war criminals
• U.S. Urges Better Russia, Baltic Ties
• Putin rules out discussing Karelia status (pre-WWII Finland territory annexed by USSR)
• Chinese Top Legislator Meets Latvian Parliament Deputy Chairman

As for this week's picture... we had a "typical" Riga Dom Church picture set for this week's mailer following on last week's sightseeing theme. But, looking at the roses in bloom climbing up through the tree branches at the back of our yard, we got another idea. Latvians have always loved flowers, and giving flowers on every special occasion is a way of life. But when our parents fled into exile, in the DP camps in Germany, there were no flowers to be had. Latvians being Latvians, they sent or gave each other postcards of flowers instead. This week's picture is a composite of a Name's Day card to Silvija's grandmother from Silvija's mom, her dad, and her best friend (who was separated from her own family and fled with Silvija's mom and grandparents). A bit of detective work reveals that Silvija's grandmother's second middle name was "Sarlote" (soft S), matching the November 5th date on the card (5.XI.1945).

One's second middle name might be stretching it for celebrating Names' Day — but it was a time when occasions to celebrate were few and far between. The card has long since turned brown — so we closed our eyes, turned back the clock, and imagined what it might have looked like when its newly-printed fresh and radiant roses brightened an undoubtedly cold and bleak Monday morning.

Remember, mailer or not, Lat Chat spontaneously appears every Sunday on AOL starting around 9:00/9:30pm Eastern time, lasting until 11:00/11:30pm. AOL'ers can follow this link: Town Square - Latvian chat.

Ar visu labu,

IN ACCORDANCE WITH AOL'S MAIL POLICY and good manners, please let Silvija (sturgalve@aol.com) know if you wish to be deleted from our mailing list. Past mailers are archived at latvians.com. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Latvian Link

The Latvian Names' Day site can be found at:

http://www.svetki.lv/cgi-bin/VarD/vard.pl

News

Russian Experts Warn of Tension With NATO Over Baltic
     Rome, June 5 (ANSA) — Russian President Vladimir Putin sees a greater emerging threat from chemical and biological weapons using various delivery systems rather than nuclear arms, the director of a leading Moscow think-tank said here today.
     The seminar on Russian strategic issues organised this afternoon by Limes, a geo-political strategy magazine, was also warned that Putin would act more firmly if Nato tries to expand further into the Baltic.
     "Rather than just blathering on as Boris Yeltsin did, Putin would be able to find adequate responses in prevention and reprisal," said Vladimir Rybakenkov, a Russian diplomat.
     Experts at the seminar pointed out that Nato's role in the Baltic has been a continual source of tension with Russia, not least because of the naval base at Kaliningrad.
     The director of Moscow's Centre for Political Studies Vladimir Orlov told the seminar that Putin believes the main threat comes from terrorist groups, but also 'proliferator states' such as Iran and North Korea.
     The threat concerns Russia much more than the United States, Orlov added, saying that Russia offers a "window of vulnerability" to chemical or biological attack.
     Orlov said Russia could decide to make "joint efforts" with the US on the problem, even if they have yet to reach an agreement on it.
     He also repeated that one solution could be Putin's proposal for a local and limited anti-missile system to take care of delivery systems that could include missiles.
     "But the ABM treaty must be maintained without any change," Orlov quoted Putin as believing.
     Rybakenkov made the same point, telling the seminar that the treaty has to be maintained because deployment of anti-missile interceptors throughout the US could "destabilise" the Russian nuclear dissuasion.
     "We don't want a cure that is worse than the disease," he said, quoting Putin, also pointing that, unlike the US, Russia has no black list of 'rogue states'.
     He also said that, unlike Yeltsin, Putin is in full control of Russian foreign policy, which will be "less ambiguous, more predictable, more comprehensible and more realistic."
(c) 2000 ANSA

Conference opens in Jurmala to discuss Russia-Latvia dialogue
     RIGA, June 5 (Itar-Tass) — A two-day conference opened in Jurmala on Monday to discuss prospects for the development of dialogue between Russia and Latvia.
     The conference is being attended by Latvian and Russian parliamentarians and politicians, and experts from Denmark, Sweden and Estonia.
     The conference participants believe that the existing disagreements prevent Latvia and Russia from developing relations. Among these disagreements, they name the existence of "non-citizens" in Latvia and Riga's drive joining the North Atlantic Alliance.
     Deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Defence Committee Alexei Arbatov said his country disagrees that the Baltics will build their security by ignoring the security interests of neighbouring countries.
     He noted that the admission of Baltic republics to NATO will not only undermine relations with Russia but also make it to take return steps.
yur/(c) 2000 ITAR-TASS

Latvia not win economically if it joins NATO
     JURMALA, June 5 (Itar-Tass) — Latvia will not win economically if it joins the North Atlantic Alliance, a Russian politologist said.
     In this case Russia will review transit of their goods through the republic because "Latvia will be forced to subordinate the Alliance", Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the State Duma Foreign and Defence Policy Committee, said.
     Commenting on statements on Russia's threat to Latvia, he said "such views can be alarming or, at best, make one smile, but they put Latvia in a strange position".
     Karaganov took part in a two-day conference, which opened in Jurmala on Monday and devoted to prospects for the development of dialogue between Russia and Latvia.
     The conference is being attended by Latvian and Russian parliamentarians and politicians, and experts from Denmark, Sweden and Estonia.
     On Russia's further foreign strategy, the lawmaker said "it should economise policy". It is necessary to pay less attention to NATO and concentrate on national restoration and relations with the European Union, he said.
     "I am satisfied with everything what the Russian leadership is doing now", he added.
yur/(c) 2000 ITAR-TASS

NATO, Baltic states hold exercises
     STOCKHOLM, Sweden, June 6 (UPI) — War vessels from NATO members Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and the United States were joined by naval vessels from Sweden, Finland and the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Tuesday at the start of the 10-day Baltops 2000 naval exercises.
(c) 2000 United Press International

Talbott pledges to help Baltics hunt war criminals
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
     TALLINN, June 7 (Reuters) — The United States pledged on Wednesday to help the Baltic states bring war criminals to justice and chided Russia for saying that Nazism was being rehabilitated in the region.
     Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott met foreign ministry officials from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and said war crimes committed in the name of the Nazis and the Soviets should be punished.
     "The U.S. welcomes the progress in redressing the injustices of the historic past, including through the active work of the historians' commissions, education, restitution, and bringing to justice accused war criminals, regardless of ideology," a communique signed by Talbott and the three Baltic states said.
     "The Baltic Partners reaffirm that their countries will continue the work in this field, and the United States renews its willingness to help in dealing with these issues," it added.
     BNS news agency said Talbott had rebuffed Russian remarks suggesting that human rights abuses and neo-nazism were on the rise in the Baltic states. "Such announcements, to put it mildly, are not true," BNS quoted him as saying.

US Urges Better Russia, Baltic Ties
Copyright 2000 The Associated Presss.
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer
     TALLINN, Estonia, June 7 (AP) — Top Clinton administration adviser Strobe Talbott urged Russia on Wednesday to seek better relations with the three former Soviet Baltic republics.
     Talbott, deputy secretary of state and adviser to President Clinton on Russian issues, also urged Moscow to stop what he said were extreme statements directed at the republics.
     Russia has sharply criticized prosecutions in the Baltics of elderly Stalinist agents on charges of crimes against humanity. Moscow has also singled out Latvia and Estonia for allegedly discriminating against their large Russian-speaking minorities.
     Talbott said a Russian government spokesmen had gone so far as to speak about a "rise of neo-fascism" in Latvia and Estonia.
     "Such charges, to put it mildly, are not supported by the facts," he said. "We're trying to bring about a better future for everyone in the region. That means enhancing common aspirations, not engaging in divisive and unwarranted accusations."
     Talbott was speaking in Tallinn during a one-day meeting of high-level U.S. and Baltic officials on key security and economic issues.
     A statement signed by Talbott and his Baltic counterparts at the talks said that Washington continued to support the desire of Baltic nations to join NATO — another issue that has prompted Russian criticism.
     The Baltics have aspired to join the Western alliance ever since they regained independence following the Soviet collapse in 1991. But the Kremlin vehemently opposes Baltic membership, viewing it as a potential threat to Russian security.

Putin rules out discussing Karelia status
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
     MOSCOW, June 7 (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia has no intention of discussing the status of the Karelia region, which borders Finland and once belonged to the Nordic country.
     "The question for us is closed and decided finally," Putin said after talks with Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
     Karelia, a region of forests and lakes stretching north from near St. Petersburg to the Arctic, belonged to Finland before Soviet dictator Josef Stalin invaded the area in the Winter War in 1939.
     Finland makes no official claim to Russian territory in Karelia, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union has suggested that Russia voluntarily open negotiations. Putin ruled this out Wednesday.
     Halonen responded only that relations between Russia and Finland have improved to the point where even such contentious issues can be debated openly.
     Halonen arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for talks focusing on Russian relations with the European Union, of which Finland is a member, and regional security in the Balkans.
     The two leaders conferred on improving customs facilities on the Finnish-Russian border, Russia's only land frontier with the European Union and used extensively by companies importing goods into Russia.
     Halonen, elected Feb. 6, and Putin, elected March 26, have met before, but this was their first meeting as heads of state.
(ak/jh)

Chinese Top Legislator Meets Latvian Parliament Deputy Chairman
     BEIJING, June 8 (XINHUA) — Li Peng, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), met here today with Rihards Piks, the first deputy chairman of the Latvian parliament.
     Sino-Latvian friendship and cooperation has been growing steadily since the establishment of their diplomatic relations in 1991, Li said, noting that China develops its relations with Baltic countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. China respects Latvia's path of development in line with its national characteristics, and hopes to promote mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation with Latvia, he said.
     China hopes that peace, stability and prosperity in the Baltic region will continue, he added.
     Li said that the NPC places great importance on friendly exchanges with the Latvian parliament, and hopes that leaders of the two parliaments as well as committees and groups in the two parliaments will increase exchanges in the years ahead.
     He said he believes that Piks' visit to China will help promote friendly exchanges between the two countries and parliaments.
     China appreciates the Latvian government's adherence to the One-China policy, and hopes that the two sides will have more exchange of views on issues of mutual concern, in order to promote mutual understanding and expand common ground.
     Piks said that China is one of the first countries to recognize Latvia, and Latvia is grateful for that, noting that the Latvian parliament is willing to increase exchanges with the Chinese NPC.
     He said the fact that his delegation includes members of different political parties in Latvia reflects the positive attitude of the Latvian parliament toward developing relations with China.
     He also extended an invitation from Chairman Janis Straume of the Latvian parliament to Li Peng for a visit to Latvia. Li accepted the invitation.
     Piks praised China's economic achievements, and said that Sino-Latvian cooperation has a promising future.
Copyright 2000 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

Picture Album

They may have only be "paper roses," but they held out the hope for real ones. The paper has long since turned brown (top) — so we tried to imagine what it might have looked like, back in a cold November in 1945 (bottom).